


Lessons in Being Inhuman: Two Vignettes

by Lenore



Category: True Blood
Genre: Backstory, M/M, Origins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-01
Updated: 2011-09-01
Packaged: 2017-10-23 06:53:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/247426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lenore/pseuds/Lenore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Godric has so much to teach Eric.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lessons in Being Inhuman: Two Vignettes

1.

It's raining when Eric returns from Death's embrace. The droplets feel like petals on his skin. They burn like fire. Don't touch him at all. It's after sundown, but his vision is limned with a silvery blue light. The world will never truly be dark again, never truly be light. He doesn't know how he knows this. He just does.

"Because we are made of instinct, my child, not of earth."

He turns toward the voice, and Death stands waiting, slender and bright-eyed and inevitable. Blood still smears his mouth. The rain makes it run in trails of pink down his throat.

"What do your instincts tell you?" The boy's voice is like the wind. Eric feels it as much as hears it.

He takes one step, and the boy is suddenly in his arms, as if Eric has grown so sleek that time and the very air have no grip on him. He presses a hand to the boy's face, mapping with his fingers, but the terrain is already familiar. He can feel the shape of the boy in everything he is.

"What else, my child?"

Eric has always trusted his instincts—every warrior does, every good hunter—but now they are a tidal force, carrying him along. He bends his head and laps at the pale taste of watery blood on skin. An elemental memory takes him over, darkness and the world spiraling away and redemption coppery-warm on his tongue. He bares his fangs and sinks them into the boy's smooth, white neck. Blood gushes into his mouth. Sings through his body. Fills him until there is no separation between him and Death.

The boy offers his throat willingly. It would be a gesture of submission from anyone else, but this is Death. Eric's cock hardens against the boy's thigh, and he pushes his hips forward violently, needing more, demanding it. Or perhaps begging. To possess or be possessed, it doesn't matter now. It's all one.

Death strokes a hand over his hair, murmuring, "Yes, yes, and what else?"

But there is nothing else, and Eric wants, needs, doesn't ever plan to stop. Death moves faster than even Eric's newly sharpened eyes can see. One instant the boy is beneath his hands, the next he is on the other side of the clearing. Every inch of separation creates an unbearable pain that leaves Eric gasping raggedly, drawing in breath he doesn't need, a vestigial instinct that has not yet faded.

"You know what to do." Death's whisper rustles like the wind through leaves.

The hunger strikes then, as if Death commanded it, awareness shuddering through Eric, hot and urgent. His senses have a life of their own, every sensation so sharp it's almost overwhelming. Suddenly Eric is in motion, fluid, effortless, the forest a liquid blur as he runs. He doesn't know where he's going, but then, he doesn't need to. He is made of instinct.

He tracks his prey and sets on them, the warm rush of life in his mouth. He feasts on another and another and another until the sharp edge of need is finally blunted. In the midst of this blood orgy, he registers what these creatures are. Humans. But it means nothing to him.

He lets the last body fall to the ground, and suddenly the boy is standing before him, laughing, rain drops shining in his hair. "I knew you were the one." He slides his hand along Eric's jaw, his thumb rubbing at Eric's lips, smearing leftover blood across his mouth. "Beautiful."

Eric is hard again —from the blood, or the boy's touch, or likely both—and he pulls the boy against him. He's fucked men, but he's never kissed one. None of that matters now. He takes the boy's mouth roughly. Not surprisingly Death tastes like nothing on this earth. He tastes like the beginning and the end and everything in between.

The boy pulls away just long enough to push Eric to the ground. His laugh is high and silvery as he clambers onto Eric's lap, peeling away clothes, shoving his hardness against Eric's. Eric grips him around the waist, so tightly his fingers should sink right through skin, tear into flesh, but nothing can hurt Death. Eric pushes his hips violently against the boy's, pulls him down into another kiss. Still it's not enough.

Death's eyes shine down at him like a pair of dark stars. "Here, my child. Here is what you crave." He draws his fangs across the inside of his wrist, a neat red line welling up in their wake.

Instinct swamps Eric's brain until the only thing that exists is the boy's wrist gripped in his hand, the necessary taste of blood on his tongue as he laps and sucks and makes love to the source of his life.

"Yes, yes, my child," the boy croons.

There is a needle of pain as he sinks his fangs into Eric's neck, but the sting is quickly overwhelmed by the larger rush of sensation. Everything that is Death flows into him, everything he is flows into Death, the connection hot and sharp and alive. His already dim memories of human existence seem paler than ever, paltry, hopeless, a dark prison of flesh and bone, empty and limited.

Eric will never be small again. He will never be alone.

The boy rises and falls over him, kiss of skin, tease of touch. The pleasure builds, magnifies, the force of a river, rage of a storm. Eric throws his head back and comes, and a word echoes through his head. A name.

When Eric comes to his senses again, he touches the boy's face wonderingly. "Godric."

The boy smiles. "'Death' seemed so formal."

2.

Eric's second life—at least the pattern of his days—is not so very different from the first. He still loves the same things: hunting and feasting and fucking. Only now these things mean slightly different, and he does them all at Godric's side.

"I have so much to show you, my child," Godric says, his finger tracing a pattern over Eric's cheek.

The touch feels like it's burned into his skin. Eric recognizes the shape of it, the same as the marks on Godric's body.

They head steadily southward, as stealthy as the night. The ground is hard-packed, frozen beneath their feet, but they move effortlessly, making no sound. The ice and snow mean nothing to them. Godric always senses their prey first, cold fire lighting his eyes, but he is patient. He waits for Eric to catch the scent and lead the way.

Tonight there is a banquet camped by the river, an entire clan following the movement of elk. Eric has the deep, rich smell of blood in his nostrils before his fangs have even broken skin. He's sated by the time he's devoured his third human, a dark-haired woman who begs with her eyes, too terrified to actually voice her pleas for her life.

On the other side of the campsite, Godric moves like lightning, taking his fill. Eric turns his sights on a man cowering on the ground, hands held up in front of his face as if that can protect him. As if anything can. Now that Eric's need has been taken care of, he can indulge in sport.

"Go," he tells the cowering man. "Run."

For a moment, the man just blinks up at him, as if terror has rendered him too stupid to comprehend the words, but then his expression clears like the sun coming out from behind the clouds. Eric knows that look. He has seen it often enough on the battlefield: the moment of reprieve when Death is fended off. The man scrambles to his feet and runs, thrashing noisily through the forest in his haste to escape.

Eric bides his time, tracking the man's progress, the sound of his thundering heart ringing like music in his ears. Tonight _he_ is Death, and he is not so easily evaded.

He waits long enough that the man will have begun to believe that he is free. That he is safe. Then Eric gives chase, foregoing stealth, so that the pounding of his feet trembles the ground. He picks up the delicious stench of fear, the panicked heave of his breath, the strangled cry that catches in his victim's throat.

And then Eric is on him.

In the glory of battle, Eric made other men feel his power, but that was a feeble achievement compared to this. His prey screams and thrashes and tries to fight, but he is as puny as an ant in Eric's god-like grip. Eric savors the sensation, and he takes the man slowly, drinking in his fear along with his blood. Only when the last cry dies on the man's lips does Eric finish him.

Eric has sensed that Godric followed him, and he finds him crouched a few feet away, watching, his eyes shining in the dark. Eric's cock hardens, and he lets the lifeless body fall from his hands. He has possessed. Now he is ready to be possessed.

Godric catches him around the waist, licks the blood from his chin. "I have so much to teach you, my child." His mouth on Eric's is full of promises. His cock is hard against Eric's thigh.

They lose their clothes and fall to the ground, which is still sodden with blood. They get it smeared across their bellies, in their eyes and mouths, in their hair. Godric pushes Eric onto his back and slithers on top of him. Eric submits eagerly. He would give anything, do anything for his, his… _maker_. The word sends a white-hot thrill through him, and he curls his fingers around Godric's thigh.

He has never been inside Godric. It has always been the other way around. So he lets out a startled cry when Godric sinks down onto his cock. To do the fucking is to dominate—a rule learned early in a warrior's life—and Eric does not understand what Godric is doing. This is not what he wants from his maker. Still, Godric's body is so tight around his cock, the pleasure so blinding, and he can't help himself. He thrusts up, hands gripping Godric's hips.

Godric's mouth curves up softly. "Yes, my child. Take what you will."

Eric's restraint was thread-thin to begin with, and this unleashes him entirely. He fucks in a frenzy. If he could climb inside Godric's skin, he would.

Godric whispers against his ear, "You may of course play with your food if it pleases you, my child, but you must remember that the old human notions are useless to you now. It is nothing to hold a feeble life in your hands."

Suddenly, Eric cannot move, and Godric's voice has taken the place of his own inside his head.

 _Power has a new meaning now._

Eric remains frozen in place while Godric fucks himself on his cock, each movement impossibly slow, agonizingly frustrating. Eric wants to thrust, wants to scream, but Godric's will holds him in place. All Eric can do is submit. Time swims around them, without meaning, as Godric moves with all the terrible patience of eternity.

 _You will be capable of more than you can even dream of, my child._

Wet streaks Eric's cheeks, tears of frustration. Shame coils in his belly. He never cried as a puny human, and to do so now humbles him. Still, Godric doesn't let him go, doesn't move any faster. Thwarted desire burns through Eric, brighter and hotter until he thinks he will explode from it.

 _Eric._

Godric has never used his name before, and hearing the word in his maker's voice fills him with wonder, with a helpless longing he feels certain can never be satisfied. Perhaps this is the lesson he's meant to learn, because Godric releases him then. Eric grunts, grips Godric by the hips, and pushes into him fiercely.

"Yes, yes, my child," Godric encourages him. "Take what you will."

Eric pulls Godric into every thrust. Godric licks the curve of Eric's neck and sinks his fangs in deep, turning his head to the side, offering his own throat in return. Eric bites down, tasting iron, and it completes the connection. Body to body. Blood to blood. A perfect communion. Eric fucks until they both come, but it's almost anticlimactic.

Godric slides off him and pulls his clothes back on. Eric lingers a moment on the frozen ground, weak-kneed from his maker's strength still flowing through him. When at last he rises and dresses, Godric takes him by the hand.

"Come, my child." He smiles like it's a secret only he and Eric will ever share. "Let us go. I have so much more I want to show you."


End file.
